Our plan was to use a realtor and put our house on the market by the first week in July. We knew that even if the house sold quickly, closing wouldn’t be until late August. By that time, we’d be empty-nesters and our lake house renovation would be almost complete.

But our plan changed when we ended up with a few more DIY projectsthan we anticipated. We were fine with the delay because our plan had buffers. We assume things will take twice as long and cost twice as much as we originally think – and we are pleasantly surprised if we finish early and save money!

By mid-July we had refinished our hardwood floors, installed vinyl planking in the lower level, updated some landscaping, and painted almost every room in the house. We still had a few projects to do – but we hoped to list the house the last week in July. (And this was fine – because we hadn’t started renovating the lake house yet either!)

That’s when our friends stopped by and suggested sticking a for sale sign in the yard. What do you have to lose?

We weren’t really interested in trying to sell the house ourselves. We weren’t ready to take pictures, create an online listing in Zillow (“Make Me Move”), or list the house on sites like FSBO (For Sale By Owner). And even though we bought our Florida condo from an ad on Craigslist, we had no interest in listing it there either.

We also knew that to get our house out to the most potential buyers, we’d need to get it on the MLS (multiple listing service). You can pay a flat fee to do that but we didn’t want to do that either. We planned to use a realtor to save time and hassles while we continued to renovate our lake house.

But we found a “For Sale” sign in our garage and after adding a few key details (including the word HOUSE), we stuck in on our front lawn. What do we have to lose? Really – that’s the sign. It’s little and kind of ugly! The house wasn’t even ready to show yet, but we thought we’d take phone numbers if anyone showed interest.

We live at the beginning of a dead-end street, so our neighbors saw the sign as they drove by. We thought that they might be the best advertising we could get to send interested buyers our way. We also have a 23-acre city park in our backyard, so a few people who walked by wrote down our number too. But no one stopped or called that first day.

We weren’t surprised by that and we still planned to list with the realtor whenever the house was totally done. The lawn sign was just a long-shot until we were ready to call the realtor.

On Day 2, Mr. MSD was busy sawing some new stair treads in the garage when a man pulled up out front. He asked a lot of questions about the house and we showed him the backyard and inground pool. He loved it and wanted to bring a friend back to see the inside of the house the next day.

The house wasn’t totally done and we let him know that. But we decided to show it to him anyway because what did we have to lose? If he wasn’t interested, a few small unfinished projects weren’t going to change his mind. And after the walk through, he wanted to talk about a price.

We had some idea of what the house was worth based on local comps (recent sales). You can find (mostly accurate) information on recent sales on Zillow. But our house had features that many of the comps lacked – such as the inground pool and updated kitchen/baths.

We recently hired a property manager (who is a realtor) for our 8-unit complex and he had run comps too. He came up with an “aggressive” price, but we doubted it would ever sell (or appraise) for that value. And if it didn’t appraise at the number, it likely would never sell at that number – even if someone came in at the higher asking price.

Based on all the information we had, we gave the potential buyer a price. He countered at $5,000 less based on our assessment. We had built in a buffer, expecting that he would want us to come down. We agreed to meet “in the middle” to finish the deal. We also agreed that we’d use the same lawyer to try to minimize costs.

We met at the lawyer’s office to create and sign the purchase offer. The lawyer agreed to represent both of us and we had to sign a letter that we would both have to seek other counsel if we ran into issues with the sale. The buyer gave a down payment and included a home inspection as a contingency. We had discussed that with him prior to the meeting with the lawyer, so there were no surprises.

Within a week, the home inspection and appraisal were in process. The home inspection produced no significant issues and the appraiser suggested that from what he saw, the purchase price was aligned well with the value of our home in today’s market. (And Mr. MSD was excited that both the inspector and appraiser thought that he must be a contractor based on all of the equipment/supplies in our garage!)

The surveyors showed up a few days later and we now have to mow around those flagged sticks. We don’t close for almost 6 weeks, so things can still go wrong. We know it isn’t a “done deal” until we sign the documents at closing.

Did we make a smart decision by selling our house this way? You’re probably thinking that we saved thousands of dollars in realtor’s fees! And we would have – if we sold the house for what it appraised for.

But we didn’t – we sold it for less. Like I said, we had a really good idea of what the house would sell for so we took that number and subtracted the realtor fees (about $8,500 or 5% – since we would have ended up paying them anyway.) And that was the final purchase price.

It was a win-win for us and the buyer.

We sold the house in two days to the first person who looked at it. We avoided all the pictures, showings, questions, and nosy people who may have just wanted to walk through. It saved us a ton of time – at a VERY busy time in our lives. And saving time and hassles are worth a lot of money to us right now.

We also knew that a split-level house with an in-ground pool might be wonderful to some people, but would really turn off others. So we’d have a smaller pool of interested buyers.

And this buyer didn’t have “HGTV goggles” on. He understood that a 60-year-old house had certain characteristics you couldn’t change. We don’t have a master bathroom, vaulted ceilings or a dining room. And we only have a one-car garage. The house isn’t “open concept” and even though we have a nice updated kitchen – it is galley-style and it’s an eat-in kitchen (but it does have a great pool view!)

Much of this would have been a turn-off to younger families who have watched shows like HGTV and dreamed about all the great things their first home would have.

Did we lose money by taking the first guy’s offer?

Probably. Well, maybe. We won’t know I guess. We could have left the sign in the yard and hoped for more calls. Or we could have posted it online and marketed it more ourselves. But all of that would have taken a lot of time and kept us in our house longer – paying more taxes and utilities. And we are already paying for two other houses – our lake house and our Florida condo. Not to mention a new buyer may have had more contingencies or could have asked for more things to be replaced/fixed at our expense.

You have to look at the whole picture and at all the expenses (and risk) involved in waiting for a higher offer.

Carrying three houses costs a lot of money, so we stuck to what we thought was a fair price and we sold our house on our own terms.

We’ve loved our home and we have lots of great memories from the 12 years we lived here. But in my son’s words – it’s time for a new chapter and time for someone else to love it.

We’re ready to turn the page and move forward. But our lake house won’t be ready when we close the sale on this house. Will we rent a house or apartment until it’s done? Or head to Florida and let someone else do the work? Maybe we’ll live in one of our rentals? Could our new shed become a tiny house? Or could we have another idea? More on bridging our housing gap next week!

Have you ever sold a house without a realtor? How did you do it? Would you have put off the first buyer and tried to get more offers? Do you think a realtor could have closed the deal above the appraisal price? If you’ve sold a house – what price tag would you put on not having to stage, show, or keep your house in “show ready” condition?

We’re also in negotiations to turn over our 8-unit apartment complex to a management company! We’ve decided to give it a try for a year and we’re really impressed with their commitment and professionalism so far. It’s helped us keep a longer term focus now on our real estate investments. We could just sell all our rental properties, but we’ll give this a try – unless we get a good offer!

We’ve definitely been busy! And we’ve been busier than we anticipated because we can’t find people to hire to help us do some work! So we’ve been forced to DIY many projects even though we have money to spend.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not rolling in $$$ right now! I get paid for the last time this Friday and that is stressful enough for someone who has been earning paychecks for 35 years… But we knew we were going to need to spend money fixing up parts of our house to get it ready to sell and on the remodel of the lake house.

Prepping to Sell

We live on a dead-end street that backs up to a 23 acre park and we’re walking distance to the school where I worked. It’s a GREAT street – close to everything, but super quiet too. And we have an in-ground pool. Summer is definitely the time to sell our house. And with both kids off to college by late August, we’d like to get the house on the market by the end of July.

It’s a great street for young families – if they haven’t watched too much HGTV…

We only have an “eat-in” kitchen and there is no master bath. But we do have two bathrooms! No granite counter tops here – but beautiful solid-surface ones (that are super durable and easy to clean) with an integrated sink that I love! And we live in a split-level that turns some people off. We love it because even in a small house, we have a huge extra living room with a nice gas stove.

The target market for our house is a young couple/family and that requires things to be turn-key ready. People who are getting a first mortgage usually can’t afford to change out flooring or do bathroom or kitchen upgrades. The flooring is the last big thing in the house that needs to be done (except for more painting…) but we have a few outside issues to address too.

The guy we use to install carpet in our rentals is booked through mid-July, so timing should be good to have him re-carpet the downstairs. We also got a quote on refinishing the hardwoods but that would require us to leave home for 2+ days and empty 3 bedrooms and the living room to somewhere? And it’s expensive ($2500+ for about 750 s.f.) YIKES…what a hassle!

We are going to rent a sander tomorrow and try to refinish one bedroom and see how it goes. In a 1400 sf house, most of the floor space is covered anyway with beds, couches, desks…and area rugs! I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Mr. MSD has also replaced a tub/shower unit and he may have to put down a deck on our front porch because the stamped concrete is starting to crumble. It’s too late to go after the concrete contractor, but it’s been hard to find someone to build the deck too! We’d spend money hiring this out to save time and to make sure it is up to code.

Luckily we’ve been able to hire a friend who is a licensed electrician to address a “crackling” noise on a light switch. My husband can do basic electrical repair, but it’s always safety first. DIY is definitely not a smart decision if you could get hurt (or hurt someone else – or burn down your house!)

Prepping to sell can be exhausting! In addition to the basics, we are trying to address anything a home inspector might find that would reduce the price or slow down the sale. We’ve loved and lived in our house for over 10 years. Almost every surface needs a little extra TLC.

Gutting the Lake House (isn’t that an awesome view?)

I’m going to write a separate post about the lake house and where things stand. It is a MUCH bigger job than getting our house ready for sale. But what I can tell you is that it has been a lot harder than we thought to get a general contractor – or any contractor for that matter!

If we can get a contractor to return a call, we always let them know the house is a “gut job” so they know it will take time and money and isn’t just a repair. We also tell them we are in the process of selling our house, so they know we are serious about getting the house move-in ready.

But it’s a 1000 s.f. house and if demand for their work is high, our little house isn’t high on their list of priorities either… It’s a good thing we have a lot of friends and connections to keep giving us names of contractors to call!

This NPR article from last fall explains that the housing crash 7 or 8 years ago contributed to the failure of many contracting businesses and even though there is a lot of work now, there just aren’t the numbers of skilled tradespeople or contractors available to fill the construction or home renovation needs in most areas.

As an educator, it also concerns me greatly that we have pushed all kids to go to college when they might not be ready for that or really have an interest. Don’t get me wrong, I think that an advanced education is important for everyone and tradespeople and contractors need advanced skills too. But it doesn’t make sense for young people to take on debt and sit in English 101 (or remedial reading/math – which many have to take) when they are 18 or 19 when they could be learning a trade that could drive their future. Once they can see their future a little more clearly, college classes can take on a whole new meaning!

There are jobs waiting for people and no one skilled or interested enough to take them. Good contractors in our area can charge what they want and people will hire them. We need to make that message clear to our young people too.

We have another meeting with a contractor tonight, so our fingers are crossed! Our back-up plan is to rent a house on the lake this fall for a few months (if our house sells), to give us time to get the house finished – even if we have to DIY more than we want too!

Maybe we could hire some retired PF blogger as a contractor? We live on a beautiful lake (with many more surrounding lakes), with more than 100 local wineries and a bunch of craft breweries! We could even rent a lake house for the contractor to stay in for a month during the gorgeous fall with the leaves changing all around the lake! It could be a really fun job!

Maybe it’s not a crazy idea for the right person…

Have you done any home remodeling jobs lately? Have you had trouble hiring out jobs or finding contractors? What jobs do you DIY and what won’t you touch? Are you a contractor who wants to hang out in the Finger Lakes in New York State to make some money and have some fun too? 🙂

I recently shared our income projections for the next 13 years. If nothing drastic changes by 2023, we’ll be making about $100,000/year from our pensions and my husband’s Social Security. And by the time I am eligible to collect Social Security in 2029, we will be making over $110,000/year.

This is without any withdrawals from retirement accounts, rental property income, or income from any part-time work we might choose to do.

We understand that our pensions and Social Security may not be fully funded throughout our lifetimes. But we don’t think that they will disappear either. Even if they are only funded between 50-75% ($50,000 – $85,000) at some point in our lives, that income should cover most (if not all) of our yearly expenses from 2022 and beyond.

But we do have a 5-year gap until I can collect my pension in 2022. My husband gets his pension now and even though I am giving up my full-time job, I will be working a part-time online job for the next five years. This will provide us at least half of the income we need each year (and likely much more.)

I also explained that we could fund the gap a variety of ways. We could withdraw money from my husband’s retirement account with no penalty. I could start a SEPP with my retirement account (to avoid penalties) or just pay the 10% penalty too. Our nine* rental units also produce some cash each month that could help bridge the gap.

(*Good news! We’re soon going from 10 rental units to nine. Our tenant of 22 years has found a new place to live. This is the house across from the lake that we are thinking of downsizing into this fall if we sell our home.)

The one thing we hadn’t really talked much about is selling properties. Based on our current situation, maybe selling most of our properties would be a really smart decision?

Before I get into some basic financials of the properties, I want to share our updated end goals again too. We spent time this winter reviewing what matters most to us. These revised goals also helped me to get over my one more year syndrome.

Our Goals:

Maximize Health/Wellness – Extremely Important (EI)

Create a Flexible, Location Independent Lifestyle – Very Important (VI)

Commit to Grow/Strengthen Relationships – Important (I)

Continue Personal Growth – Important (I)

Increase Wealth – Somewhat Important (I) *meeting financial obligations is a given

With these goals in mind and the knowledge that our pensions and Social Security (even at a reduced percentage) will fund a large part of our future, it’s time to think more broadly about our other assets. And about designing our retirement lifestyle.

We are already planning on trying to sell our home and downsize into one of our Lake House rental later this year. Our plan was to use the proceeds of that sale to pay off two mortgages, leaving us with just one more debt – a large mortgage on our 8-unit rental.

But as we started thinking more about the next five years, the kids both being away at college, and all of the places we want to go – maybe we should just sell it all…(or most of it!)

Here is a basic breakdown of the properties and a conservative estimate of what we would walk away with after a sale, realtor’s fees, depreciation recapture, and paying capital gains taxes if we sold them in the next year.

*If we decided to keep the Lake House in N.Y. to use during the summer/holidays when kids are on college breaks, we would still have about $210K in cash if we sold properties 2, 3, and 4. Another option is to sell the Lake House too – and just rent a furnished place in our hometown (VRBO/HomeAway, etc) when we want to be in New York! There are beautiful townhouses and brand-new apartments available with all kinds of amenities. Lake access, pools, tennis courts, golf, club houses – and even central air, which none of our properties has right now!

Why would we even consider selling (almost) everything? Because we can.

We had the properties as part of a long-term plan when we bought them years ago. But it doesn’t look like we will need the income from these properties now. It might be smart to sell them and use some of the proceeds to help fund our five-year gap ($100,000 or less) and invest the rest ($100,000 or more). We also wouldn’t have to dip into our existing retirement accounts to help fund the gap years either.

You might be thinking that keeping those properties could bring greater financial freedom by accelerating us past financial independence. And you might be right. If we could hold out about 7 more years, we would have the 8-unit rental paid off. We would then make about $15,000-$20,000 a year just from that property.

But at what cost to us?

If we sold it all, we’d be totally debt free – including mortgages. And we wouldn’t be managing all of our rental properties as we do now. We wouldn’t have to mow lawns or post ads for new tenants. We wouldn’t worry about whether the plow company showed up or if the commercial washing machine was going to quit again. No more gutters to clean or credit checks to run. No more emails reminding people that we don’t allow pets anymore. Really. No exceptions. Raising the assessment? Who cares. Another ten grand to put on a new roof? Not a worry anymore.

Could we hire a property manager to do all of that for us? Maybe. But we’ve done this work for years and that was our plan. We’ve started looking into property management, and we’re not happy with what we’re finding either. We have some friends that do it when we travel now, but we don’t think this would work long term. Managing our properties isn’t that hard, but managing the management company from 1500 miles away might not be worth it either.

We are also firm believers that we care about (and care for) our properties much more than anyone else ever will.

When we think about leaving town for an extended period of time, we get pretty stressed thinking about the properties. Maybe it’s a good time to sell. Maybe not. Luckily, we don’t have to make a rush decision!

The more important question relates to our goals. Will keeping the properties help us meet our two most important goals – Maximizing Health/Wellness and Creating a Flexible, Location Independent Lifestyle? I’m not so sure.

What do you think? And what else should we be considering? We’d love to hear your thoughts or other questions you might have!

Would you just sell it all (or most of it) and take the money knowing that you should be in good financial shape without the properties down the road? Would selling help you sleep better at night? Would you give it a few years and try a property manager? If we did sell, where would you invest the proceeds?

I wrote a post last fall about our Snowbird Housing Plan. It described how we bought the two homes we’ll live in during retirement for under $100,000. Our plan is to downsize this summer into a single family foreclosure we bought for $44,500 in 1994. This property has an unobstructed lake view and it’s been used as a rental since we purchased it and fixed it up. We’ve had the same tenant living there for more than 22 years. And we’ve never raised the rent. REALLY.

I wonder what you’re thinking right now. Maybe the tenant is a family member or good friend? Could the tenant be a co-worker? The tenant probably works for them somehow in exchange for not raising the rent.

If you were thinking any of those things – the answer is no. We put an ad in the paper (no Craigslist or anything back then) and chose strangers to move in the house. And although the tenant takes care of the snow and lawn, she doesn’t work for us in exchange for anything. That was part of the deal when they rented the single family house.

Maybe you’re thinking something totally different. Why on earth didn’t they raise the rent – like EVER?? No tenant can be that good. Why not raise the rent by at least the rate of inflation? Didn’t their taxes or other expenses go up? Are they crazy to absorb all of the increases over the years without raising the rent?

It wouldn’t surprise me if you thought any of those things either. Sometimes we think we’ve been crazy not raising the rent too. But we just didn’t do it. Were we lazy? Maybe. Were we stuck in the “status quo” mode? Definitely. Are we lousy landlords? I think it depends on how you look at it.

Let’s take a look at some of the data and then we’ll consider that question again.

Sold as a foreclosure. Won with a sealed bid of $44,500. Needed some repairs, new roof & siding.

Rent in 1994…$600, Rent in 2017…yes, still $600/month

Total rent paid in 22.5 years = $162,000 (270 months x $600/month)

Occupancy rate = 100% (Yes, this house has been rented EVERY month since we purchased it)

Maintenance calls over 22.5 years = 10? (Actually, it might be only 7 or 8 – we haven’t kept track. The tenant only calls for major issues – no heat, roof leaks, etc.)

Estimated Expenses (repairs/supplies/maintenance) over the 22.5 years = $15,000? (New carpet, updated bathroom, furnace repair, replacement windows, tree removal.) I have recent expenses, but haven’t kept all of our records over the 22+ years.

So…are we lousy landlords? In some ways, I think we are. We could have handed our property off to a management company. They would have known the comps in the area and increased the rents on a regular basis. We probably would have made enough money in rent increases to at least cover the cost of having the house managed. Probably.

But then I also remember that saying…no one cares about your money more than you do. AndI think that holds true for your properties too. What would the vacancy rate have been? What about the costs related to each turnover? How many carpets would we have installed over 22 years of rentals? There’s a community college 4 miles down the road – would they have rented to a bunch of students each year? How many maintenance calls would we have had to deal with? Probably more than 10.

I looked at Zillow today and the rental estimate for our property is $1250/month. Whoa….That’s more than double what we charge. Even if the Zillow estimate isn’t 100% accurate (due to the lack of any recent data on our specific house), it is likely we could be renting out the house for $1000/month. But it wouldn’t rent for that in its current condition.

So now you might be thinking that the house is in poor condition and that’s why we kept the rent low. And that’s not true. The house is clean and the tenant takes very good care of it. But almost everything needs updating. Our tenant wasn’t interested in granite counter tops or stainless steel appliances. We didn’t spend money on anything that wasn’t needed, because she was happy with what she had. And we didn’t raise her rent.

If you’re still reading, you might be in the other “camp” that thinks that there are some good reasons for keeping the rent the same all these years. (OK- I fully admit that you still might be thinking we could have raised it SOME over those years, and yes – you are probably right!)

Maybe we aren’t as inadequate as landlords as it seems.

Here are a few things to consider…

This rental is as close to passive real estate investing as we could ever get (and we saved thousands in management fees!)

The house is worth more than 2X what we bought it for. (The Zillow estimate is over $122K which is $10K short of 3X the purchase price!)

We’ve had tax benefits for 22 years.

The tenant has paid off the mortgage twice. We refinanced the house after the second payoff and leveraged the proceeds to put a down payment on an 8-unit apartment complex.

The tenant has never missed a payment and takes care of all minor issues.

We listened to a smart realtor who told us NOT TO SELL this property because of the lake view. We’ve been tempted, but we stayed the course – year after year.

We could stress ourselves out by second guessing all of the decisions we’ve made over the years about this property, our tenant, and not increasing the rent. But we can’t turn back the clock either. So we’ve chosen to move forward.

And forward today included telling our tenant of the plan to end her lease and take the house back over this summer. It definitely wasn’t easy, even though we really don’t have more than a business relationship with her. Yet we know that our rental house has been her home for more than 22 years. And it was the home of her husband and her dog before they both passed. Her memories of home run deep in our house.

We think we’ve given her adequate time to find a new place to live, but I’m not sure we’ll ever feel good about this decision. But it is our house and that is certainly a benefit of owning rather than renting. We’ve been good landlords to this tenant and she’s been a good tenant to us. It’s been a win-win situation for all.

That’s all I have for today. I’ve been thinking about this post for months – wondering what people in the personal finance or real estate investing “space” on the web might think. It made sense to write it today after giving notice to our tenant. This is the beginning of ditching the status quo and embracing change this year.

I’m certainly open to criticism on our landlording skills! And I’m guessing there is someone out there who could estimate/calculate all the money we may have left on the table by not raising the rent! But after a few tweets about this, I know some of you saw positives I didn’t even consider. And thank you for that – I do think we’ve helped others (our tenant) for years and that makes us feel good too.

When I wrote the post “Should We Allow Pets in our Rental Property“, I explained that we own a small 8-unit apartment complex and we have never allowed tenants to have pets. I asked for help from readers to see if we were just biased against pets or if we had blindspots that we had not considered. Our goal was to make a smart decision that met our needs and the needs of potential tenants.

The feedback you provided was outstanding! It verified many of the concerns we had and there was support for continuing our policy of not allowing pets. But there were a few of you who also made a good case for focusing more on the quality of the tenant, rather than worrying so much about pets. And that made a lot of sense to us too.

We were very interested in your feedback because we knew we had two openings for the upcoming month– and if we were going to change our thoughts about pets, this would be a good opportunity to do it. And it ended up that we had another tenant move out this month as well (because of a medical situation), so we ended up looking for three new tenants, rather than two!

After posting an ad, we had numerous people contact us to see the apartments. Many people who respond to ads don’t read the criteria carefully (credit check, reference check, etc.) and when I email them to verify our criteria they don’t respond back.

But after about two weeks, we had enough interest to start showing the apartments and collecting applications. We quickly had people very interested in renting from us. We’ll describe them as Potential Tenants (PT) and we’ll number them to help keep the stories straight!

PT #1 – Good communicator, loved the apartment, and after reviewing her application, she met us with a deposit and signed the lease! She’s saving $25/month and getting an apartment in a nicer area! She stayed in one apartment over 10 years – so we are hoping this is a long-term situation. And the tenant has no pets! Now that was easy! One down, two to go…

PT #2 – Seemed very nice in communications, but she also explained that she had a cat. Our original ad specified no pets, but she had met the other criteria and asked if she could still see the apartment. When we met with her and talked, she explained that she could give us references for the cat from a previous landlord and she could also provide all vet records. She seemed like she would be an excellent tenant and after reviewing references, we offered her an apartment. Two down, one to go!

Or not…

When we called PT #2 to set up a time to sign the lease and collect the security deposit (and pet deposit), we didn’t hear back from her for 3 days. And by the 3rd day, we gave up and showed the unit to PT #3. They also wanted the apartment! We verified their application and offered the unit to PT #3 later that night. Of course PT #2 contacted us the next morning and was ready to sign the lease…

Now you might think, well great! Now take PT #2 and you are all set! But when we explained that we had rented the unit she wanted to someone else because she hadn’t contacted us, she said she would have to think about the third unit we had. She had wanted an upper unit we are currently renovating and the last unit available would be a 1st floor unit. We also had told her that we were continuing to show the unit and that someone else may be selected. And surprise – she didn’t call us back right away even though we were willing to allow her cat!

In the meantime, we showed the unit to PT#4 who also wanted the unit! After verifying her information and checking with references, we called to set up a time to meet to sign the lease and get a security deposit. And about an hour before we were supposed to meet – PT #4 calls and says,” I really want the apartment but I don’t have the money.” Well, guess what – we’d really like the money…

On to PT#5! You guessed it, PT #5 wants the apartment too! It will be perfect! But this PT just signed a one-year lease in a different complex – but she needs to be in the school district our complex is in. PT #5 is willing to lose 2 month’s rent and a security deposit to get in the school district and definitely wants our apartment. I call the landlord and references and everything checks out. So we call to offer PT #5 the apartment and set up a time to meet and…you guessed it, NO CALL BACK.

We then decided that we weren’t going to wait more than 24 hours for a response from anyone. We called PT #6 and showed the apartment again.

And PT #6 has a DOG.

PT #6 was a great communicator and asked about the dog in the first email he sent. He even said he understood if we wouldn’t accept pets and that if we made an exception, he would expect to pay an extra deposit and likely a higher rent. Yep – he had our attention! He clearly understood that many landlords don’t accept pets and that having a pet required more work and money on his part.

After agreeing to show the apartment to PT #6, he arrived a few minutes early with the application filled out. He toured the unit and said that he would be interested in renting. We told him that we would need to talk more about the dog (as we have never allowed them in the past) and he said he understood. We checked his references and agreed to offer PT #6 an apartment. So we might have our first dog! (OK – we had a tenant sneak in a dog a few years ago – so our first “legal” dog!)

But of course, until we have the security deposit in hand with the lease signed – we know it might fall through! PT #6 called us to set up a time to meet. He showed up with a bank check in hand and read the lease carefully. He asked about the utilities to call and about getting renter’s insurance as well. Finally – lease signed, deposit in hand – and we’ve rented to a tenant with a dog.

So we think we have found three great tenants and we really did our best to consider folks with pets. We almost had a cat – but we are fairly sure that based on the communication issues, we would have had more problems down the line.

For those of you who rent – just keep in mind that communication was a key factor with each of the tenants that we chose to rent to (along with verifying all of their information!) Also, don’t bother to look at apartments if you don’t have a security deposit.

We are excited that we were able to find tenants who could move in next month! But we would have considered leaving units empty for a month just to get the right tenants. We have a 98% occupancy rate this year for our ten rental units, so this will help us continue to maximize our profits. It also gets more challenging to rent units as winter approaches, so it is nice to have year-long leases that end next summer.

We have let the other tenants know about the dog and asked them to let us know right away if there are any concerns. We also told them that this was an experiment and if they were interested in pursuing a pet, to talk with us because this is not a “policy”. We also reminded them that they would need to pay a full month extra deposit as well if they were thinking about getting a pet.

Thanks again for all of your feedback and we will keep you updated on how it goes! If you have any other questions or comments, we’d love to hear them! Fingers are crossed for a quiet fall with some great new tenants!

Disclaimer

Note: Ideas and opinions on MakeSmarterDecisions.com are simply the results of my own experiences, and they are not intended to advise or offend. MakeSmarterDecisions.com should be viewed and shared for educational and entertainment purposes only. My posts are based on my personal experiences, and all readers should consider consulting a professional or specialist in a given area (financial, retirement, real estate, etc.) before making any decisions.
See full disclosures under the Home Tab.